


Rain, down on me

by jesseofthenorth



Series: I can't stand the rain [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Mostly hurt, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is running for his life. He's not sure he'll make it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rain, down on me

Hawkeye runs into the driving rain. The forest around him is old and withered and smells of decay. The inches of leaves under his feet slowly turning back into soil and and filling the air with the smell of rot. This is not the sort of place he wants to die in... so he runs.

He can feel his knees starting to wobble, but Clint keeps running.

His pursuers are close, not close enough to see him, but close enough to catch him if he stops. Close enough to kill him, finish what they started.

He clamps his arm tighter to his side and runs, grateful for the rain. Rain makes it harder to navigate in the dark, but wet ground swallows up the sound of his feet where dry ground would telegraph it.

If it's harder for _him_ to see it's harder for _them_ to see. He can use the cover of the rain and the dark, Clint will take every advantage he can get. So he runs, and breaths through his nose and tries to slow the bleeding.

 

He runs until his lungs burn, and his thighs ache. He runs until the stitch in his side is ripping through him like fire. Everything hurts, his head is pounding from blood loss and the approach of exhaustion, but he keeps running.

There is a road some unknown distance ahead and on that road, in a nondescript sedan, is his salvation. waiting to pick him up from what was supposed to be a routine recon. All he has to do is run fast enough to elude capture and run long enough to make it to that road, and Coulson.

If he is still there. The dead air Clint has been getting over the comm link is worrying.

Clint is fairly sure Coulson wouldn't just leave him there. But there has been nothing over the comm from the moment the shooting started and there can only a couple of explanations. Either Clint's comm stopped working.... or Coulson left him.

Clint stumbles when the idea flits through his head. He pulls himself out of the trip quickly, without going down. He can't afford to lose time falling, any more than he can afford to lose concentration thinking about his partner. He has to get out of here first, worry about what is (or isn't) waiting for him at the road later.

Clint keeps running.

The rain has started to slack off and Hawkeye can see the light is returning to the sky very faintly in the east.

He's running out of time. 'daylight comes and I turn into a pumpkin' Clint thinks irrationally. Fuck he's starting to lose it. He has to get his head back together ans quit getting ahead of himself.

He keeps running, and tries not to think. But he has to. Think. He needs to figure out what he will do if he gets to the road and it's light out. Because SHIELD will yank Coulson out of there before they let him be exposed like that, sitting on that road in broad daylight will get him killed. If Clint is not there by the time it's light, Coulson will have no choice. They have orders after all.

Clint tries to run faster. He is not ready to get stranded in the middle of fucking no where with a hole in his side bit enough to stick his fist into. And he is sure as shit not ready to die here.

He runs and tries to keep his breathing even. He fights the grey edges that are creeping into his vision. He knows what that means but he isn't going to stop.

He runs and thanks what ever for the compass in his head that has always been infallible always lead him home. Even now when he can barely form a clear thought and his feet are starting to drag Clint knows where that nondescript sedan is.

Or should be. If it's still there. If he isn't out here alone.

He hears that phantom voice in the back of his mind, the one that always whispers at the worst possible time. It says to him _“But you always knew you'd be alone when....”_ Clint doesn't let if finish, he pushes past it making himself run harder.

He runs as fast as he can and tries to keep his arm clamped down on the bullet hole in his side.

He is starting to fail. His feet are getting tangled in each other, tripping him up just enough to slow him down.

Clint misses his next step entirely and crashes hard onto ground that is bare and hard and three feet lower than he expects it to be. He lands on his hands and knees and feels the impact all the way into his shoulders and hips.

He crouches there stupidly, head hanging down, gasping for breath trying to figure out why the ground is suddenly black and shiny wet instead of covered in leaves and moss and twigs.

Oh.

Asphalt. He is crouched on asphalt in a wet gray dawn in the eastern block bleeding on the pavement.

Dawn.

It's dawn. It's dawn and he's bleeding and everything aches and he is not even sure he can get to his feet, never mind figure out where to go from here.

He can hear that whisper again _“You always knew you'd be alone,”_ and now he's too tired to push it away. It's dawn and he's bleeding and he's exhausted and he's not sure he can stand. He can feel the rain hitting the back of his head where it's hanging, running down his face, across his cheek bones before it drips off onto the pavement. He cant seem to move.

“Jesus Christ Barton!” he hears and a hand lands on his shoulder and another wraps around his middle and drags him to his feet. “Let's _go_!” Coulson hisses in his ear.

Clint lets himself be pulled forward, then pushed into the waiting sedan.

The engine is running and they pull away with the lights off.

Clint rolls his head to the left looking at Coulson's grim profile.

“You waited.”

Coulson snorts and doesn't look at him, just keeps driving.

“Wouldn't leave you there alone, Barton.

Clint nods once and passes out.


End file.
